He also said that Baku may be planning to attack Armenia as well in an attempt to open an “extraterritorial corridor” to Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave.
Speaking during a session of the General Assembly, Mirzoyan again accused Azerbaijani forces of committing atrocities as part of “ethnic cleansing” in Karabakh planned by Baku.
“As I speak today, 30 percent of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh is displaced,” he said. “The entire population of Nagorno-Karabakh remains without any means of subsistence, as just limited humanitarian assistance has been able to enter into Nagorno-Karabakh. There is no food, no medicine, no shelter, no place to go. People are separated from their families, terrorized and fear for their lives.”
“A number of international human rights organizations, lawyers, genocide scholars, reputable independent experts ... have already characterized the situation on the ground in Nagorno-Karabakh as a risk of genocide … Let me draw your attention to the fact that after its failure of preventing Genocide in Rwanda, the United Nations managed to create mechanisms for prevention, thus making ‘never again’ a meaningful pledge. But today we are at the brink of another failure,” added Mirzoyan.
He went on to call for an immediate deployment to Karabakh of a UN mission that would “monitor and assess the human rights, humanitarian and security situation on the ground.”
“Claims that the United Nations is not present on the ground, so has no capacity to verify the situation cannot be an excuse for inaction,” he said.
Mirzoyan’s speech contrasted with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s repeated claims that “there is no direct threat to the civilian population of Karabakh” after two days of heavy fighting that left dozens of Karabakh civilians dead and caused tens of thousands of others to flee their homes. Azerbaijani officials seized upon Pashinian’s statements to reject on Friday Western criticism of the Azerbaijani offensive.
Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov again defended the assault when he addressed the UN assembly earlier on Saturday. He touted Friday’s “long-awaited” meeting between Azerbaijani and Karabakh representatives and said Baku is now taking “practical steps to reintegrate” the region’s ethnic Armenian population into Azerbaijan.
Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed “our concern for the protection of the rights and security of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh” in a fresh phone call with Pashinian.
“The United States will continue its steadfast support for Armenia and its sovereignty and territorial integrity,” tweeted Blinken.
Mirzoyan declared in his speech that “forcefully imposing on Armenia an extraterritorial corridor, a corridor that will pass through the territory of Armenia but will be out of our control, can be the next target” of Azerbaijan.
The corridor sought by Baku would pass through Syunik, the sole Armenian province bordering Iran. Iranian leaders have repeatedly warned against attempts to strip the Islamic Republic of the common border and transport links with Armenia. They reiterated these warnings following the Azerbaijani offensive in Karabakh launched on September 19.